Drums and Shakos Large Battles is very simple but quite elegant. Of course it has it’s problems, but all things considered, it is quite nice system. Name is somewhat misleading, since it is ‘large battles’ only when compared to SDS, which is the skirmish game by same author.

Practically, forces that are pitted against each other are two to three brigades. Battles can be played to satisfactory completion in just couple of hours thanks to clear victory conditions and fluent gameplay. Since system is not traditional igo-ugo, it keeps both/all players busy. Combat does not require a a lot of references to charts and modifiers, and losses are counted as disorders until unit routs. There is supplement coming up to scale battles further and I am quite interested to see how that turns out.

DSLB has unusually meaningful – and useful way to utilize reserves. They are controlled by CinC and once released and assigned to brigade, they increase brigades ability to sustain losses a little longer (besides of the immediate effect of reinforcements bringing havoc to the enemy lines). Often times units in the reserve are composed of some heavier cavalry, such as Cuirassiers or Dragoons and artillery. Fielding the reserve at right time makes a big difference.

It seems that I have more Austrian artillery than I actually needed. So far four batteries are ready and I think there are six or eight waiting. Perhaps the extra artillery becomes useful if I ever utilize 4 base platoon arrangement, since then I can use two bases of artillery to represent single battery.